to think that £500 is far too much to spend on groceries in a month?

[fartlek]

I just totted up what I spent at supermarkets this month and realised that this is why I am £20 away from the end of my overdraft the day before payday. DH has also bought groceries this month so this isn't even our entire bill! We don't share accounts so it gets a bit murky as to who spends how much on what (this is a whole other thread to be started in relationships, we won't go there just now) but I'm pretty sure this is extortionate.
I have never been much of a budgetter when it comes to food shopping, I just buy what we need and try not to go for the most expensive item. What do others spend if I may ask?

We eat plenty of fruit and veg - the usual cereals, eggs, toast, fruit, yogurts, crumpets, toasted muffins etc for breakfast. Always have bananas, tangerines and grapes on the go. Cook with veg generally - cherry toms, peppers, onion, mushrooms - and like a pp we use passata and also tinned tomatoes in pasta dishes which is 2 of your 5 a day. In the winter months we do lots of soups too, always have beetroot for sandwiches etc.

For two adults, and a large breed we spend £140 per four weeks on supermarket shops including toiletries and dog food. Then I'd say another £80 a month on takeaway/meals out and a further £50 a month on alcohol shops .... So roughly £270 a month all in.

I think £500 is reasonable for a decent standard of living. I'd rather spend more and shop at Waitrose, than eat horse meat from Tesco!

In total £295 including a bottle of wine and 6 bottles of beer each week, plus a toddler in nappies and another child in night time pull ups, and including all toiletries and cleaning products.

That was obviously £295 for the month, not week!

I probably spend about£600-£700 a month

Six people, one large dog, two cats and a hamster

Fruit and veg is cheap if you buy in season local stuff, or frozen or canned which all still counts. What pushes the price up is buying out of season imported fancy stuff like asparagus or purple sprouting brocolli.

Risotto rice is about a pound to £1.50 for 500 g, which is probably at least 6 portions if you are putting protein and veg in the risotto - not expensive at all.

Probably fifty a week for us with myself, dh and five year old son.

We do spend more if we go to Asda though.... if we stick to lidl we are safer financially.

I shop online and spend between £60-65 a week for 4 of us, inc toiletries, nappies, wipes, cleaning products, etc. I spend around £10-20 on top up shops for milk/bread etc and then dh spends £40 on booze and treaty stuff. So over £100 a week.

I meal plan, cook everything from scratch, have 50% veggie meals, shop the best offers/reduced sections. We rarely have any food go to waste. We need to cut back but I just don't know how.

£150pw here for two adults and two toddlers. Happy with that, we eat
Loads of fruit and veg including strawberries etc

About £50 a week. Me and 2 young DC.
And to be fair about £20 of that is fruit!!
One does eat her main meal at school though so that helps!

We spend about €500 per month, which includes groceries and all cleaning/house stuff, alcohol etc for 2 adults and a 10yo who is only here part of the time. Probably get one takeaway a month out of that too. We live on the continent.

I could spend less, can get it down to €350 per month if necessary. But I love cooking and trying out new recipes, and we all enjoy good food and nice treats. So it is money well spent I think.

Fruit and veg is cheap if you buy in season local stuff, or frozen or canned which all still counts. What pushes the price up is buying out of season imported fancy stuff like asparagus or purple sprouting broccoli.

But it's stuff like this that is just not true any more. It's based on how shopping used to be twenty, thirty years ago.

In supermarkets, there is no "cheap in season local stuff". The cheap stuff is the out of season air-freighted imported stuff. Try buying a local apple in Tesco. The cheap ones are all imported. Asparagus is cheap as chips nowadays - it's air-freighted and can be grown hydroponically. Kiwi fruits used to be thought of as a delicacy - they're cheaper these days than British Cox's apples (and air-freighted from NZ). (Coxes or any British apples are £££ compared to imported Granny Smiths). Grapes air-freighted from Galicia or the Philippines all year round - always cheap on offers. Cheap overseas bananas. Cheap strawberries from Israel, air-freighted.

If you haven't got a local farm shop, it's going to cost you a lot more to buy "in-season local produce" than buying air-freighted stuff. This is the paradox about food buying that loads of people haven't really caught up with. Buy processed, imported and pre-prepared - cheap food. Try to buy fresh local fruit and veg in a supermarket in a city? You are paying through the nose.

At least £30-40 of my weekly shop goes on fruit and veg - and that's just on the bog-standard pears, apples, bananas, plums, kiwis, broccoli, greens, cabbage, carrots, onions, lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, green beans, celery and so on. They are NOT cheap! We are hardly "living it up" on purple sprouting broccoli every night (though actually things like imported asparagus and mange tout are nearly always cheap and on special offers like the 2 for £2.50 ones).

Ditto canned or frozen veg - yes that's a lot cheaper; but actually it isn't nearly as good for you as well as tasting disgusting and things like baked beans, canned veg were only actually included in the government "5-a-day" advice because it was thought people would never meet the requirements if they were told to eat the amount of fresh veg that was required.... The original recommendations were at least 8 portions a day fresh fruit and veg. Tinned mixed veg is cheap as chips but it's not doing much for you health-wise compared to fresh veg.

I bought a book called "The Pauper's Cookbook" to try and save money at one time, but it became clear to me that you also need large pans and a massive freezer, which we didn't have, to do all that bulk cooking. Plus it doesn't factor in heating cost. You are paying twice over by cooking it once then heating it up again.

We spend about £50 a week on shopping, including nappies, toiletries etc, and I usually cook from scratch. It is dh and I as dd is too little for food yet. I find shopping online (Tesco) and meal planning helps, as well as buying wipes and nappies in bulk and buying mainly Tesco own branded items. We do click and collect as well which is free. Sometimes wish I could spend more but it's worth having less money and staying at home with dd for me personally, and dh is happy with it too

£40-50 per week food with maybe £1-2 on extras per week..two Adults, one baby. Have lived in £20 per week. Idll shopper and poundland for named toothpaste and shampoo..

Dont understand how you can spend more than that. I buy meat, veg, fruit, and cook from the beginning. We eat well.

We spent £400 at the supermarket last month, so food for three, cleaning products, nappies etc. On top of that probably another £100 on lunch at work for me and DH. We do need to cut back but the only area we can do that on is food. DH was very sad last weekend when we were chatting about it since we don't spend money on anything else, never go out for dinner etc and that budget includes having a few friends over for dinner at ours too. But seeing we aren't the only ones spending this much makes me feel a bit better!!

I make sandwiches every day..tiger bread sliced (tesco, morrisons etc £1) dif meats or cheese love lidll garlic one 69p and rocket ranges between 49p and £1 makes sandwiches for a week...

We are family of four, DH, twins (aged 10) and me. I spend roughly £140 weekly but this is ALL food for the week including Sat night 'treat night'. I buy butcher's meat (versus supermarket) and children take a packed lunch to school each day. I meal plan and I'm not brand loyal and go try to shop around if I possibly can.
So I don't this your spend is outrageous!

If you don't have £500 to spend on groceries then, yes, sadly, it's too much.

We spend more than that, but we're not overdrawn.

You're not kidding about needing to put something in relationships - if I get this right, fartlek, your DH earns more than you, but you're buying the lion's share of the groceries and household stuff and going overdrawn as a result. Presumably, he's consuming more of the food than you are and the child you are feeding is (I assume) as much his as yours.

Too right he shouldn't see you go short. If this arrangement is leaving one of you struggling, then you don't just need to change what you're buying, but how it's funded from within the family. The funding might be the only change that's needed, but if he's not willing to change that, then he can damned well take pesto pasta to work for lunch, like your DS!

Around £250 for me, DP and baby DD which includes cleaning stuff, cat food etc. It was around £200/ month but we've been buying a lot more fresh fruit and veg. I meal plan and shop at Morrisons - though am planning to switch to Aldi when the one near us is built!

Fruit and veg is cheap if you buy in season local stuff

What? no it's not!
That's what I had to give up when I took a pay cut to go part time. It costs a hell of a lot more than the less tasty non seasonal imported stuff, but it's not something we can afford at the moment, hopefully we will again soon when my earnings go back up.

Unless you're talking about non-farmer markets.. which is stuff that comes from the same importers as the supermarkets and isn't seasonal either